Eugenia pyriformis Cambess: a species of the Myrtaceae family with bioactive essential oil

Eugenia species have been appreciated for their edible fruits and medicinal properties. This paper aims to investigate the chemical composition and in vitro antileishmanial, antifungal and antiproliferative activities of essential oil from aerial parts of Eugenia pyriformis (EP-EO). The oil showed strong antileishmanial activity against promastigote forms of Leishmania amazonensis (IC50 = 2.16 mu g/mL). It also exhibited high antifungal activity against Malassezia furfur (MIC = 30 mu g/mL), which was determined by the broth microdilution method. Its antiproliferative activity was evaluated against the following cells: GM07429A (normal cell), MCF-7 (human breast adenocarcinoma), HeLa (human cervical adenocarcinoma) and M059J (human glioblastoma). Its major constituents, which were determined by GC-FID and GC-MS, were limonene (14.8%), nerolidol (11.0%), alpha-cadinol (10.3%), caryophyllene oxide (9.9%) and beta-pinene (7.1%). These results showed, for the first time, the effectiveness of EP-EO as a natural product which has promising biological activities, a fact that enables its ethnopharmacological use.